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Earlier this year, when Backrooms was nothing more than a teaser trailer, I wrote an article about how the movie would likely succeed and lead to more movies based on internet horror, repairing the damage done by the infamous Slender Man movie. While it wasn't a very impressive prediction, it still came to pass several times over.
Backrooms was a cultural phenomenon, and almost immediately after, dozens of major Hollywood studios charged into bidding wars for different internet horror IPs: big studios, famous directors, and some of the most popular internet horror stories out there.
First on the docket was the horror icon Siren Head, an urban legend from artist Trevor Henderson. The name somewhat says it all. The stories follow a tall, spindly creature with two sirens for a head who uses camouflage and mimicry to stalk its prey. The bidding war was fierce, with 5 studios fighting it out for the grand prize. When the dust cleared, Warner Bros. held the film rights to the character. They placed two of the hottest names in horror at the helm of the project. Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You, Whalefall) will be directing, with Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) acting as a co-writer. The latter is hot off of directing Weapons, the Oscar-nominated hit of 2025.
One of the next big IPs to be gobbled up by the studios was The Mandela Catalogue. Right alongside Backrooms, The Mandela Catalogue is an analog horror web series that went viral in the early 2020s. The two-part story is a series of news reports from Mandela County, Wisconsin, which has been invaded by an army of shapeshifters led by a false version of the archangel Gabriel. The war for the film rights was massive, with 11 major studios gunning for it. The victor was Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists. While Stephen Spielberg is set to produce, they will be following the Backrooms blueprint and letting the series creator, Alex Kister, direct the feature film at 23. No doubt hoping he'll be the next Kane Parsons.
Not two weeks after the Siren Head movie was announced, another character from Trevor Henderson's repertoire was snatched up by TriStar. When it rains, it pours, I suppose. A filmmaker has yet to be attached to the project. Whether TriStar will attach a big name or attempt to find a new Kane Parsons remains to be seen.
Finally, in probably the most unexpected turn of the internet horror acquisitions, Spooky Pictures and Image Nation have announced that the next V/H/S movie will be based on The SCP Foundation. Founded in 2008, The SCP Foundation is a series of "leaked" files that tell the story of a secret organization that hides the existence of supernatural entities from the public. It is hosted on the SCP Wiki and is widely considered to be the largest collaborative writing project in history. It will be making a long-awaited big-screen debut in the next V/H/S movie. This particular project will prove to have some interesting repercussions. For one, the Creative Commons copyright that the SCP Foundation is protected under is one that is rarely navigated in Hollywood. It will be interesting to see how the major monetization will go. Additionally, the feature will be backed by Image Nation Abu Dhabi, which is currently the center of a boycott amidst the ongoing crisis in Palestine.
As we enter this new era of horror movies, this could go one of two ways. It may be a string of victories. If these movies do well, then horror could become the biggest sector of Hollywood, and internet virality will become the first step in a successful film career.
On the flip side, filmmakers could become lazy. Studios could hope that the hype of an existing IP will be enough to generate revenue, and the substance won't be necessary to see success.
I remain optimistic, however, as it seems that they're looping in original creators and being careful in calculating how they utilize IP. There may come a time when internet horror movies become a bubble like the superhero era of the 2010s, but I look forward to the ride there.
